Gun dealers should follow West Virginia’s gun culture
Jun 16, 2016, 5:45 AM | Updated: 11:08 am
Yesterday, there was a six-hour filibuster in the Senate, as Democrats shamed Republicans for refusing to deny guns to people on the FBI watch list.
The National Rifle Association is very much against this because members are worried that such a law could let a gun-grabbing president disarm the nation and then order the military to round us all up.
I’m not sure that our sons and daughters in the military would ever follow an unlawful order like that, but that’s the fear.
Related: Massacre proves we need more alert gun shop owners
In any case, during the filibuster, Senator Joe Manchin stood up to speak. He’s one of the few Democrats to get an NRA endorsement. He was raised in West Virginia’s gun culture. And he explained what that means.
“At a very young age we’re taught, basically, you never sell your gun to a stranger. You don’t even give your gun to a family member or friend if you don’t think they’re responsible.”
And I thought – that’s the solution. You don’t need new laws, you just need gun dealers to follow the gun culture that Joe Manchin grew up in. Because in his world, no one would dream of selling a military weapon to someone he didn’t completely trust.
Contrast that with the gun dealer who sold that rifle to the Orlando killer. He was asked if he knew the guy. Here’s what he said:
“He’s familiar to me — vaguely — I don’t know him personally.”
Yet he sold him a weapon designed for a battlefield.
Yes, I know, it would be pretty hard to make a living only selling weapons to trustworthy people. But at least you wouldn’t wake up one day to find you’d armed a terrorist.
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